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He walked.

Walking, and then walking some more.

Lee Jae-soon continued to draw circles, relying on the tiny marks he had made earlier.

To be honest, it was hard to consider it a proper, neat circle.

He moved in curves, but that was all there was to it.

He hadn’t measured it properly before moving, nor did he have any superpowers to look down from the sky. Plus, he didn’t have an incredible talent that allowed him to draw perfect circles without measuring.

That’s why Lee Jae-soon thought the circle he had drawn would end up looking like a squished oval.

But even a squished circle is still a circle.

‘Right. As long as it’s a circle, isn’t that good enough?’

What he had to beware of was turning it into any other shape.

So what he needed to do was not to get distracted, but to keep walking along the pre-drawn circle.

Lee Jae-soon gathered his mind and kept walking.

How long had he been walking?

How many laps had he made?

Suddenly, he felt a strange clarity in his mind.

Along with that clarity, a feeling of expanded senses made him vaguely aware of something beyond the darkness.

Even in the darkness where he could barely see an inch ahead, it felt like a silhouette was moving in the distance, and he could catch a whiff of a distant foul scent carried by the wind. His ears told him that the wind was mixing with the sounds of rustling leaves and the crunching of dirt beneath his feet, and the fine hairs on his body seemed to warn him that something was watching him.

A gaze.

He felt it.

A presence that shouldn’t be there.

His heightened senses communicated this to him.

It felt like someone was present in this spot.

That he needed to stop this foolishness and either run away or be on high alert to confirm what it was.

But Lee Jae-soon did not follow the urging of his instincts.

Instead, he just recalled what he had seen on the paper.

『 If you keep walking in circles, you will sense a presence. 』

『 If you feel the presence, it means the ritual is progressing successfully, so you can remain at ease. 』

『 But you must never stop walking in circles. It doesn’t matter how fast you go, but you must never halt or step outside the circle, or draw any shape other than a circle. 』

『 Keep walking in circles. 』

『 The presence will continue to draw closer. But while you feel the presence, you must remember to keep moving and never stop. 』

Lee Jae-soon trembled at the chilling sensation of the presence he felt in the distance, yet he did not slow down his footsteps.

He had to strictly adhere to the precautions.

Moreover, the ritual was in progress.

Now that it was ongoing, he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

If he did… a terrible ending far worse than the fear he felt now might be approaching.

The only thing he could do was one thing.

To successfully complete the ritual.

Thud.

Thud.

Lee Jae-soon continued to walk.

And as he moved, the presence also drew closer to him.

What was once just a silhouette across the darkness was now coming near.

It seemed to abandon any attempt to hide its footsteps, sending the sounds of rustling grass and stepping on dirt, dragging its feet along the way, into the wind. And it carried with it the stench of crushed grass, the scent of soil being disturbed, and some unknown foul smell.

And it was staring intently at Lee Jae-soon.

So much so that it felt like it might pierce through his skin.

There were no visible eyes, nor was there any light being emitted from them.

What was visible was only a vague outline.

But its gaze felt inappropriately intense.

He felt like he wanted to scream and run away right away.

『 The presence will continue to draw closer. But while you feel the presence, you must remember to keep moving and never stop. 』

Yet still, he continued with the suspicious ritual in the pitch-black darkness.

Even if the cold night air felt like the breath of a ghost making his bones tremble, he walked and kept walking.

What pushed him forward was the fear of what might happen if he failed the ritual and the strong desire to obtain an object to replace his notebook, and the ambition to escape a future filled with destruction and succeed instead.

And his will was rewarded.

The presence that had been approaching came to a halt.

It stopped watching Lee Jae-soon and took a comfortable position sitting on a tree stump, busy surveying the surroundings.

It glanced at Lee Jae-soon from time to time, but compared to the piercing gaze he felt before, this was more akin to indifference.

‘Okay, it’s fine.’

Lee Jae-soon was greatly relieved as the unknown entity lost interest in him.

He felt like he had overcome a great mountain.

『 If you ignore the presence and keep walking, it will stop. 』

『 If that happens, it will mean the ritual has been half successful. 』

Recalling the words written on the paper, he picked up a bottle of alcohol that lay on the ground.

It was placed conveniently for him to grab while walking, so it wasn’t difficult to pick it up.

『 Now, drink the prepared alcohol. 』

『 There’s no issue with how frequently you drink. Whether you sip every 30 seconds or every minute, or drink when passing certain areas, it’s all free. 』

『 But there are two things you must absolutely adhere to. 』

『 The first is that you must keep moving in circles. 』

『 The second is that you must empty one bottle of alcohol in one round. 』

Lee Jae-soon recalled what was written on the paper and slowly looked at the alcohol in his hand.

Alcohol contained in a cheap plastic bottle.

The label boldly read “Makgeolli.”

‘It said the alcohol content didn’t matter.’

It said there was no restriction on what kind of alcohol he could drink.

Vodka, wine, rum, soju—any alcohol would do as long as it was liquor.

Thus, Lee Jae-soon pondered for a long while about which alcohol to choose.

He considered what would interfere least with the ritual and what he could get without spending too much money.

And he eventually decided on Makgeolli.

Because its alcohol content wasn’t too high, and it was cheap too.

He also thought about beer…

But he remembered that drinking beer would lead to more frequent urination, and that during the ritual, holding it in would either mean enduring discomfort or the only option he had would be to relieve himself while walking, which was simply unacceptable.

Even if it wouldn’t affect the ritual…

Wasn’t it related to human dignity?

He wasn’t a beast to just wet himself while walking.

And there was another reason for choosing Makgeolli.

Its nickname was “Crawling Drunk.”

『 The only time you can stop drawing circles is when you’re too drunk to keep your balance. Until then, you must never stop. 』

Makgeolli had a way of creeping up on you, making you feel perfectly fine one moment, only to knock you out the next.

Considering that characteristic… it made perfect sense for this ritual.

Moreover…

‘It has all sorts of flavors too.’

These days, Makgeolli has been undergoing diversification by adding a variety of flavors.

Black raspberry, walnut, pine nuts, mint chocolate, pear, chestnut, tropical…

It was truly showcasing individuality through all sorts of flavors.

This was quite pleasing for Lee Jae-soon.

Isn’t it better to enjoy a delightful sensation rather than spinning around with just one flavor?

‘Though it might as well just be Makgeolli.’

Lee Jae-soon muttered to himself, shook the Makgeolli a few times, popped the cap off, and threw it into the inner circle. Then he walked forward while sipping it bit by bit.

While he wanted to gulp it down all at once, if he did so, he might accidentally step out of the circle.

The safest method was to sip slowly while walking in circles.

‘The most important thing is the circle.’

Lee Jae-soon didn’t want to fail the ritual after coming all this way.

Absolutely not.

That’s why even as he kept drinking the Makgeolli by mouth, his eyes stayed firmly fixed on where he had walked, and although his body began to wobble with the creeping intoxication, he refused to step outside the line he was walking. Sometimes, when his ankle twisted or he stumbled over a stone, he would use all his strength to right his body and keep walking.

And after maybe finishing about three bottles?

He began to hear a strange sound in his ears.

–Rap.

–Tap.

–Two.

The sound was odd.

It resembled a song but wasn’t played with an instrument, and it couldn’t be called a melody either; it was more like a bunch of noises made with lips flapping randomly.

And this strange sound became clearer the more he drank, the more his vision blurred, and the more his head grew numb.

As if it were trying to charm him into losing consciousness.

And soon enough, the sound completely transformed and pierced into his ears.

[ Lip-tap, tip-rap! Rap-tip-tap! ]

[ Tip-tap, tip, lip-tap! Tigger-tap-two! ]

The sound didn’t just reach his ears and into his brain; it felt as if it had gone into his brain and leaped out through his ears.

The sound vibrated in his head, resonating through his body, creating massive noise that didn’t break his mind. On the contrary, it merely stirred his excitement, much like listening to his favorite singer at a concert.

[ Tip-tap, tick-tack-two! Tick-tack-two! ]

And starting from that sound, noise began to gain lyrics.

The lyrics were neither in Korean nor a foreign language…

But they formed a peculiar noise whose meaning was somehow clear.

[ A grasshopper sits on my hat, a moth flies onto my hat! ]

[ With a sharp nose and one-eyed glasses! ]

[ Powder from a moth settles on my red frames and vanishes! ]

[ With an expensive silver buckle and a precious watch! Long pants go down to the knee with long boots! ]

[ Who am I, who am I! ]

The song was asking Lee Jae-soon.

About his identity.

[ Tip-rap, rap-tip-tap! Tick-tack-two! Tap-tap, ticker-tack-two! ]

 

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